Voters have substantially less faith in the results of elections than they did four years ago, according to a new poll by the Wall Street Journal and NBC News.
According to the poll, only 45 percent of respondents “have confidence that the results of the election will be counted fairly,” while 45 percent lack this belief. Four years ago, 59 percent were confident in the fairness of election results, with only 34 percent disagreeing. Likewise, only 44 percent of respondents trust the results of mail-in voting.
When broken down by party, Republicans have substantially less faith in the veracity of the upcoming election than Democrats do. Thirty-six percent of Republicans have confidence in the accuracy of all vote counts, while an incredibly low 23 percent trust mail-in ballots.
Interestingly, Democrats trust the accuracy of mail-in ballots more than they do traditional voting at present, with 55 percent claiming confidence in all ballot counting, while 65 percent supported the accuracy of mail-in. With the push towards mail-in voting, the risk of election fraud is omnipresent, as was recently seen in New Jersey. So it is unsurprising that voters are wary of the results of the election.
The partisan divide can further be shown by the left’s misinformation campaign about the post office and mail-in voting. With the media and leftist politicians minimizing the dangers of election fraud, many are likely unaware of the risks associated with mail-in ballots.
Likewise, the outsized trust in voting by mail demonstrated by the responding Democrats likely is related to the newly popular conspiracy theory that President Trump is attempting to interfere with the election through attacks on the Postal Service. The fact that left-leaning respondents have more confidence in mail-in ballots than in any other form is likely more of a reflexive response to this alleged assault on the freedom of our elections.
The varying degrees of confidence in voting forms has likewise affected the ways Americans plan on voting in November. Thirty percent of respondents plan on voting by mail, 20 percent early in person, and 43 percent in person on Election Day. When broken down by party, a mere 11 percent of Trump’s votes should be arriving by mail, while Biden will receive 47 percent of his votes in that manner.
Trump and Biden respectively should be seeing 20 percent and 21 percent of their votes coming from early voting. Sixty-six percent of Trump voters plan on casting their ballots in person on November 3, while only 26 percent of Biden voters plan to do the same.
